Raising the Funds

This past week I spent 3 days in a seminar sponsored by the Center for Nonprofit Excellence and the Lilly School of Philanthropy on gift giving, planned giving, and developing a major gift and capital campaign. The Board had me schedule this training as we begin to continue our preparations for a major renovation project to revitalize our spiritual home, Unity of Louisville.

Many of you have attended the town hall meetings and understand that challenges and opportunities we have. The Board continues to take the initial planning steps necessary to attain the information, including the amount of money needed, to move forward on our project. I am proud of the Board as they are willing to do the work and hold the consciousness that all that we do will be done in excellence and reflect the true nature of our spiritual community.

To that end we continue to face ongoing challenges in meeting our daily operations expenses. This is one of the issues all nonprofits face when envisioning a major fundraising effort, how do we continue to meet our obligations while at the same time create the income necessary to step forward with the "big" projects.

We are blessed and abundant. The Board and I affirm this at every week. We are blessed with a generous and committed congregation that always steps up when asked. We are prosperous. There is no lack in God and there is no lack in us. That is the first step in meeting our obligations. We stay in principle. We acknowledge fear or anxiety when we become aware of it and deny its power over us and return, in faith, to the affirmation of prosperity.

The second step is to be as open and transparent as possible. To give everyone all the information and data that we have and allowing the power of imagination and the creative process to begin to respond creatively to the relative world facts. The facts are the Board and staff have done a great job in minimizing expenses and the offerings we receive is currently meeting our obligations but we are slowly falling marginally behind. This is eating into a prudent reserve and without the additional funds the Board will be forced to withdraw funds from the Unity Foundation.

This is not a bad thing and places us in a much better position then many of our sister churches. The third step is to ask. My friend Pat Taylor always tells me to simply ask for what we need.The ask is to prayerfully consider giving an extra tithe or offering in the next couple of months. At this time I am not going to suggest an amount but the facts are we are falling approximately 5%-10% behind each month or $15000-$3000. Not an insignificant amount but certainly manageable.

What we are committed to is to not operating from a consciousness of fear and lack and begin to cut back on programs and services. We are committed to stepping forward in faith and with the assurance of God we know we have all we need to do all we are called to do.